Abramson, Norman

Developer of the ALOHAnet, the first network that transmitted data into a computer by means of radio waves rather than conventional wires or telephone lines. Abramson founded ALOHA Networks (a San Francisco company providing satellite access to the Internet using small earth stations) in 1994, and he currently is the company's president and chief technical officer. In 1958, Abramson joined the electrical engineering department at Stanford University where he remained until he was appointed a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Hawaii in 1965. In 1967, he became director of the ALOHA System, a university research project concerned with new forms of data network architecture. From 1972-85 he served as a United Nations adviser to developing countries on the use of satellite technology for national development.

Allen, Paul

Co-founded Microsoft Corporation with Bill Gates in 1975. Prior to starting Microsoft, Allen worked as a programmer at Honeywell. Before leaving the company in 1983 to battle a personal illness, Allen was head of research and new product development, helping to engineer some of the company's most lucrative products, including MS-DOS, Word, Windows and the Microsoft Mouse. Currently Allen works with smaller independent companies, but is still Microsoft's second-largest stockholder and retains his seat on its board of directors.

Andreessen, Marc

Cofounder of Netscape Communications, Inc and was its V.P. of Technology. At the University of Illinois, Andreessen created the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) Mosaic graphical browser for the World Wide Web. After leaving NCSA in 1994, he worked for Enterprise Integration Technologies/Terisa Systems before joining with James Clark to form Netscape Communications, Inc. Andreessen led the company in creating Netscape Navigator, a widely used Internet browser. Netscape Communications has also created a complementary pair of World Wide Web servers for the Unix platform, one of which makes use of Netscape's Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology to offer fully secure two-way communications via the Web.

Atanasoff, John

1904(b.)-1995(d.) Built what is believed to be the first automatic digital computer - the Atanasoff-Berry Computer -- with Clifford Berry at Iowa State University from 1939-1942. The innovations of the device included a binary system of arithmetic, parallel processing, regenerative memory, and a separation of memory and computing functions. It was also the first computing machine to use electricity, vacuum tubes, binary numbers and capacitors. The final product was the size of a desk, weighed 700 pounds, had over 300 vacuum tubes, and contained a mile of wire. It could calculate about one operation every 15 seconds.